


rarely short on caring

by shellybelle



Category: Daredevil (TV), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Claire Temple: Superhero Handler Extraordinaire, Gen, Well just Clint really, dumpster bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 23:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5352590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shellybelle/pseuds/shellybelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five superheroes Claire saves, and one that doesn't need saving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rarely short on caring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [andibeth82](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/gifts).



> See end notes for content warnings.
> 
> Written for my dearest Andi, who was having a bad day and still managed to give me affection while I also had a bad day. <3

_“Bound by paperwork, short on hands, sleep, and energy...Nurses are rarely short on caring.”_

_Sharon Hudacek_

 

**5.**

 

Claire gets off a twelve-hour shift at six in the morning, and manages--with valiant effort--not to fall asleep on the N train on her commute home. She’s grateful for the shower she managed to grab at the hospital before she left, and the clean scrubs she’d stashed in her locker; New York transit has enough of a lingering scent without her bringing in the smells of dried blood and vomit on her clothing. She leans her head against the window, heedless of the bumps and vibration of the plexiglass under her hair.

 

She gets off the train and pulls her coat around her as she emerges out into the early morning air, shivering at the temperature difference and blinking fog out of her eyelashes. As she walks the four blocks to her apartment, she makes a schedule in her head: sleep, coffee, lunch with her nursing school roommate, more coffee, clean apartment, eat dinner, back to work.

 

Maybe with a few more cups of coffee in there for good measure.

 

The familiar sense of being not-watched, and the smell of fresh blood, greets her when she steps into her apartment. Claire sighs, locks the door behind her, and says, “Hi, Matt.”

 

Sprawled out on the couch, Matt props himself up on one elbow, winces horrifically, and then waves a gloved hand at her. “Hey, Claire.” He shuffles his feet a bit to get some leverage to stay semi-upright. “You weren’t here when I got here, so…”

 

“I just got off a twelve-hour shift,” she says, hanging off her coat and pushing her hair back, heading into the living room to peer at him. He’s got a hand curled almost protectively around his ribs, and she sighs. “Let’s see it.”

 

Matt doesn’t have his mask on, and he’s got the dignity to look sheepish as he pulls his shirt off. Claire arches an eyebrow, but doesn’t react further. Messy, purpling bruising surrounds the still-seeping gash on his side, and it looks painful, but it’s not even the worst thing she’s seen in the past two hours. Still, she sighs. “I’ll get my bag,” she says, climbing back to her feet. “Stay put.”

 

“I made coffee,” he offers.

 

Claire stops in her tracks, turning to look back at him. He faces her direction with an almost puppy-like expression on his bruised face, and she wants to pat him on the head. She doesn’t really want coffee--she wants to go the hell to bed--but he looks so earnest and apologetic, like he really doesn’t _mean_ to be bleeding all over her couch (she’s really into removable, machine-wash slipcovers these days) that she smiles, even though he can’t see it. “Thanks,” she says, and means it. “Now stop moving, or it’ll be extra stitches for you.”

 

**4.**

 

She patches Matt up and leaves him to sleep off the codeine on her couch while she catches a few hours’ sleep in bed. Her phone alarm goes off at eleven, reminding her to get up and into the shower so that she has enough time to get her ass into Brooklyn to meet Nina for lunch.

 

The hot water revitalizes her more than the sleep, and by the time she emerges from her bedroom, clean and dressed in something other than scrubs or sweatpants, she feels fresh and actually ready to deal with the day.

 

Her empty living room takes her by surprise, but then, given Matt’s day job, maybe she shouldn’t be shocked that he left before she woke. Still, her sofa slipcover has been washed and dried and tucked back into place without a spot of blood in sight, the throw blanket she’d given him folded neatly over the back. Claire shakes her head in amusement, tugging on her boots and coat and shouldering her bag.

 

What the hell, she’ll treat herself to a coffee. She’s earned it.

 

Christmas season in New York means that the entire city is flooded with tourists, even the spots that shouldn’t be. The Starbucks she chooses--the one she’d been hoping was far enough from Midtown that the out-of-towners wouldn’t flock to it--is no exception, and she sighs as she gets in line, glancing at her watch. As long as the baristas keep things moving (which, in her experience, they generally do) she should be fine.

 

There’s some kind of commotion at the front of the store, and Claire peers around the line to try and get a better glimpse. A small crowd has gathered around one woman, a redhead wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, and enough people have their phones out that she must be some kind of celebrity. Claire rolls her eyes. _Tourists_ , she thinks, beginning to dismiss them, but then someone says “ _and_ she dropped all those secure files on the internet, like, isn’t that a national security risk?” followed by “do you think she’ll do that thigh move if we ask her to?” and she realizes that the woman in the hat isn’t a pop star, but a superhero.

 

Claire squints through the crowd to try and figure out how the Black Widow is reacting, and realizes that she’s not doing anything, just standing around waiting for her coffee, ignoring the chaos around her. Her expression is carefully blank, but Claire knows enough about micro-expressions from working in an emergency room that she can pick out the tell-tale signs of veiled disgust and annoyance from a mile away. Claire feels a pang of sympathy. Superheroes, it seems, don’t get the respect they deserve. Saving the world a few times should mean that you at least get to order a coffee in peace, right?

 

Maybe this is why Matt sticks to micro-managing the crime in Hell’s Kitchen.

 

By the time Claire orders her coffee, the crowd around the Black Widow hasn’t even thinned, with the exception of a few bored teenagers who probably already got whatever pictures they wanted for social media. She’s looking increasingly annoyed with her “fans” as Claire shuffles across the store toward the throng to wait for her own coffee, her fingers twitching slightly on her crossed arms.

 

Against her better judgment, because she’s nothing if not a creature of habit, Claire intervenes. “Oh my God,” she says, pitching her voice high and excited as she points out the window, “I think that’s Adele!”

 

In true New York tourist hivemind fashion, the throng dissolves into excited chattering and shrieking, and within a few seconds, ninety percent of it has stampeded out the door, leaving only the few true caffeine addicts waiting for their coffee, who seem to be more interested in their smartphone screens than in the Black Widow. A sudden quiet settles over the shop, the overzealous babbling of the crowd replaced with the pleasant murmur found in Starbucks everywhere, and Claire feels a tingle of relief.

 

A barista pops her head over the counter. “I’ve got a double-shot soy latte for Natalie!” she calls, and the Black Widow steps forward, plucking it from the counter with a precise movement and gliding to the mixer table to sprinkle in some nutmeg before replacing the lid. She moves towards the door and then pauses, lowering her sunglasses and turning sharp, surprisingly friendly eyes to Claire. “Thanks,” she says, full lips curving in a smile, and then she’s gone, blending seamlessly into the crowd outside.

 

Claire has the self-respect to wait until she’s completely out of sight before sending a grinning snapchat to her sister.

 

**3.**

 

She doesn’t spend much time in Brooklyn, so the C train is an unfamiliar ride for her. Sipping her coffee, she settles down into a hard plastic seat next to a tall white guy in an unmarked black baseball cap, flipping through real estate listings on a Stark-made tablet. He’s mumbling to himself as he scrolls, and Claire catches the words “fucking gentrifiers”, which makes her choke on her latte.

 

The guy glances at her, and then pats her awkwardly on the back to help her clear her lungs. It’s not the kind of thing she expects from a dude on the subway and her first instinct is to throw her coffee in his face for touching her, but he looks so incredibly uncomfortable that she doesn’t. “Thanks,” she says when she can breathe again.

 

“No problem,” he says, and then adds, “Sorry for touching you without your permission. It’s kind of a reflex. I did a lot of coughing as a kid.”

 

“I forgive you,” she says. His voice is friendly and oddly familiar, and she finds herself peering more closely at his face, trying to figure out how she recognizes him. “Death by latte would have been pretty embarrassing.”

 

He grins. “Not the worst thing I’ve heard,” he says, and it’s the grin that does it. She has time to think _holy shit, that’s Captain America_ before he’s glancing down at his tablet again, shaking his head. “Can you believe this shit?” he asks, and only the tilt of the screen towards her makes it clear he’s talking to her and not himself. “These prices are ridiculous.”

 

She looks down, and manages not to drop her coffee, because yeah, that’s a lot of zeroes. “That’s the price of New York real estate, I guess,” she says.

 

Captain America--Steve Rogers, she corrects herself mentally; he’s not in uniform, give the guy a break--sighs. “Used to be you could rent a place Brooklyn Heights on a single mom’s wages.” He shakes his head. “None of that now, I guess. Fucking ridiculous.”

 

 _Captain America curses like a sailor_ , Claire thinks gleefully, and sips her coffee. “Because of the fucking gentrifiers?” she asks.

 

He glances at her, but he’s grinning. “Damn right,” he says. “I mean, look at this shit. Two point four million for a one-bedroom? I mean, yeah, the view’s nice, but you used to be able to get a room for twenty-five bucks. Inflation’s one thing, but this is ridiculous.” He scrolls a little further down. “And I can tell you, it’s not the people who used to live in those neighborhoods driving prices up like that. It’s the hipsters and the celebrities and the folks that used to stick to the Upper West Side.”

 

He’s practically pouting, and Claire purses her lips in amusement. “You could try renting,” she suggests.

 

Rogers snorts. “That’s not the point. It’s about the authenticity of the neighborhood.”

 

Claire snickers. “I’m pretty sure that’s what the hipsters said before they moved in and turned all the bars into microbreweries.”

 

He looks briefly horrified, and then disgusted. “Microbreweries,” he says, his mouth wrapping around the word like it’s something gross he found on the bottom of his shoe. He shakes his head again. “It’s just wrong.”

 

The MTA announcer helpfully lets them know that the next stop is coming up, and Claire gets her things together. “Good luck with your apartment hunt,” she tells Rogers.

 

“Thanks.” He gives her a smile that almost seems too genuine to be real--though whether it’s too genuine for someone from Brooklyn or for someone who regularly fights aliens and terrorists and super-robots, Claire’s not sure. “Enjoy your day.”

 

“You, too.” She thinks for a moment, and then rummages around in her purse for a pen and a receipt, scrolling through her phone with her free hand. “Here,” she says, finding the right number and scribbling the name and digits down on the receipt and holding it out for him.

 

Something embarrassed and uncomfortable flickers across his face as he takes it. “Uh,” he says awkwardly. “Thanks, ma’am, but I’m not really--”

 

“Oh, shut up, Cap,” Claire says, and he does, blinking at her like he can’t decide whether to be surprised, amused, or both. “That’s my friend Vanessa’s number, she’s one of the best real estate agents in Brooklyn. She’ll help you find a place that’s not slummy and hasn’t been taken over by the hipsters yet. Maybe you’ll even be able to find an Italian restaurant that doesn’t deconstruct their meatballs.”

 

“I don’t even know what that _means_ ,” Rogers says, but he’s grinning again. Claire laughs as the train eases to a stop, climbing out onto the platform. She turns to look over her shoulder as the doors close behind her, and just manages to catch Captain America tilting his hat to her in salute before the train pulls away.

 

 **2.**  

 

Lunch with Nina goes by too quickly, and Claire finds herself back in Manhattan before the sky has even started to darken. She spends an hour or so cleaning up her apartment--cleaning out the fridge, sorting her laundry, changing her sheets, all the little chores that get lost over the course of a week and build up into a staggering pile.

 

It takes her awhile to gather all the trash that’s built up in her apartment and shove it all into one garbage bag, but she manages, and slings it over her shoulder with a grunt as she carries it down to the dumpsters outside. “One of these days I’m going to live in a building with a damn elevator,” she mutters to herself as she hip-checks the door open, shivering at the blast of cold air the wind funnels into the alley. She pushes open the dumpster and tosses the bag into it.

 

There’s a grunt of pain as the bag makes impact.

 

Claire stops in her tracks and heaves a sigh, turning around and walking back to the dumpster. “Damn it, Matt,” she says unhappily, leaning over the side. “Twice in one day is just--”

 

She stops. Blinks. This is not Matt. This is an older guy with blond hair, no mask, and a black and purple uniform that looks vaguely familiar. The bow still clutched in one of his hands clicks it into place. Hawkeye blinks blearily up at her, one eye swollen half-shut. “Oh, hey,” he says. “Can you help me out of here? I think I’m stuck.”

 

And then he passes out.

 

Claire sighs, and rolls up her sleeves.

 

Unhelpfully, the guy doesn’t wake up while Claire hauls him up the stairs to her apartment. He also doesn’t wake up while she’s stitching the cut on his leg closed, and that part actually is a little helpful, since she doesn’t have to worry about him twitching around on her, but it’s still a little concerning.

 

He _does_ wake up when she puts up a new pot of coffee, lifting his head off the pillow she’d shoved under his head. “Alright, coffee,” he says, and then stops, tensing. “Shit. Where am I?”

 

“You were in a dumpster,” Claire says dryly, handing him a mug. “My dumpster.”

 

“Aw, man.” He sits up, rubbing the back of his head with a wince and accepting the mug she offers him. “My wife’s gonna kill me.”

 

Claire raises her eyebrows, sitting on the coffee table. “For being in a dumpster?”

 

“For jumping off stuff.” He gives her a lopsided grin, and then cocks his head to one side. “Why’d you bring me here instead of calling an ambulance?”

 

“I’m a nurse,” she says.

 

Hawkeye looks at her, and his name makes a lot more sense. “That’s not an answer.”

 

Claire shrugs. “Usually you superhero types don’t like doctors.”

 

Hawkeye snorts. “Maybe the superheroes with superpowers don’t,” he says. “And the ones screwing around without anybody to look out for. I’ve got a family to take care of, and my wife’ll be pissed if I get a dumpster infection.” He looks briefly guilty. “Again.”

 

Claire can’t decide if she finds him endearing, awkward, or scary. She decides to go with all three. “I’ll call you an ambulance,” she says. “Metro General’s the closest.”

 

His expression brightens. “Nice,” he says. “They’ve got the best ER coffee in Manhattan.” He lowers his voice to an almost conspiratorial whisper. “Columbia thinks theirs is all that, but let me tell you, it is shit.”

 

She decides she likes him, and after the paramedics carry him out--far more gracefully than she’d carried him in, with Hawkeye waving cheerfully at her from the stretcher--she goes on Amazon and orders her nephew a toy bow and arrow.

 

**1.**

 

Her next shift at the hospital gets moved up an hour thanks to someone else going out sick with a stomach flu, and Claire steps back out onto the ER floor in her first pair of clean scrubs of the night, rubbing sanitizer onto her hands. Lucia, one of the day nurses, grins at her as she steps up to the nurse’s station. “Welcome back to the pit,” she says. “Don’t you usually start at six?”

 

“Lori called out, and I grabbed the overtime,” Claire says, not bothering to add that it would work out in her favor the next time she had to bail to stitch up a wayward superhero. “Anything interesting?”

 

“Well, if you’re up for a challenge, there’s a belligerent drunk with a potential concussion in bed four,” Lucia says, handing her a chart. “You might as well start off strong.”

 

“You know me so well,” Claire says, glancing briefly at the face sheet and suppressing a sigh as she heads down the ER bay and pulls the curtain to bed four aside. “Well, look who it is.”

 

Jessica Jones grins at her through bloody lips. “My favorite nurse,” she says, just a bit of a slur to her words.

 

The pretty blonde sitting on the bed beside her and smoothing her hair back rolls her eyes. “ _Jess_ ,” she says, sounding exasperated.

 

“No, it’s okay,” Claire says. “Jessica and I have met.”

 

The blonde doesn’t look reassured, but Jessica pats her arm. “Don’t worry,” she says. “She’s cool. She’s the good kind of crazy. Helped me smuggle a guy out of the hospital.”

 

“Say it a little louder, I don’t think my supervisor could hear you,” Claire says dryly. “What’ve we got today?”

 

“She fell off a--”

 

“Building,” Jessica interrupts. The blonde glares at her, and Jessica rolls her eyes. “I told you, Trish, she knows.”

 

Trish? Claire squints at the woman. Oh. That’s why she looks familiar. “Weren’t you Patsy?”

 

Trish tilts her head to the ceiling as if asking the heavens for guidance. “I’m going to murder my mother,” she tells the speckled ceiling tiles pleasantly.

 

“Don’t say that,” Jessica says. Trish glances at her, and Jessica points at Claire. “She’s probably a mandated reporter or something.”

 

“I am,” Claire says. “But I’m not sure that counts as a legitimate threat.” She takes out a penlight and shines it in Jessica’s eyes. “How tall was this building you fell off?”

 

Jessica shrugs. “I don’t know,” she says. “Tall-ish?”

 

Claire sighs, makes a note in the chart, and says, “I’ll tell the attending to get a CT to address the potential head trauma from you _falling down some stairs_.” She narrows her eyes pointedly. Jessica nods, smirking, and reaches into her jacket pocket.

 

Something silver glints briefly under the fluorescent ER lights and Trish makes a scandalized noise, snatching what’s clearly a flask out of Jessica’s hand. “I am so sorry,” she tells Claire with a long-suffering look. “I can’t take her anywhere.”

 

“I know the type,” Claire says. She grins over Jessica’s protests, and goes to get the attending.

 

**0.**

 

An odd lull disturbs the usual emergency room chaos around three in the morning. Claire and Tanya spend some time making up the beds and checking stocks once they’re caught up on charting, and then sit behind the counter, rolling their eyes at the interns racing wheelchairs in the hallway. “Ten bucks and a coffee that Johnson crashes into a gourney,” Tanya says dryly.

 

“Loser’s bet,” Claire says, shaking her head.

 

There’s a sudden clamor of commotion from the entrance of the ambulance bay, and Claire squares her shoulders, getting her game face back on. Before she can even get all the way to her feet, a pair of paramedics comes through the doors, bringing in a yelling, struggling man on a gourney. She and Tanya exchange glances, and Claire rolls her eyes and gets to her feet as the medics transfer the man to the bed. “Sir,” she says. “Sir, you’re in the emergency department at Metro General. Can you calm down and tell me your name?”

 

“Screw you, lady!” He yells, struggling against the paramedics’ grip, heedless of the blood pouring out of a cut on his head. The smell of liquor rolls off him in almost visible fumes, and Claire suppresses the urge to wrinkle her nose with long-practiced reflexes. She’ll take Jessica’s brand of chronic drunk over this kind of belligerent alcohol consumption any day of the week. “I don’t need no stinking hospital!”

 

She glances at the paramedics. “Bar fight,” one of them says.

 

Claire sighs. “Sir,” she says patiently. “You’ve sustained a head injury. We need to make sure that you don’t have any neurological--”

 

With surprising speed and coordination, the guy pushes himself off the bed, knocking Claire back into the counter as he pushes past her and makes a run for it. “Hey!” Claire shouts, stabbing the security call button on her ID clip before sprinting after him, pausing only to grab a pre-packaged syringe of Haldol.

 

Her yell seems to to startle him and he wavers on his feet, staggers, and then loses his balance, falling to the ground. Claire slides across the floor to catch his head, and then slides the needle easily into one of the large veins on his arm with steady hands, depressing the plunger. Instantly, Angry Drunk relaxes in her grip. She checks his pulse, finds it steady and even, and then sits back, panting.

 

Footsteps pounding on the floor alert her to security’s arrival, and she looks up at the clump of nurses and interns gathering around them on the floor. “Holy _shit_ ,” Johnson says, staring at her with the wide-eyed amazement only a twenty-seven-year-old medical intern can muster. “That was _badass_.”

 

“We got your call,” one of the security officers says, frowning. “Is everything okay?”

 

Claire climbs to her feet, brushing off her scrubs and pushing the used syringe into one of the medical waste bins within arm’s reach. She tucks her hair behind her ears, rolls her shoulders back, and grins. “All good here,” she says. “Business as usual.”

 

She helps the paramedics haul Angry Drunk Guy back into bed, starts a saline IV line, and grabs a cup of coffee from the nurse’s station before sitting down to write her incident report. Hawkeye was right, she thinks, sipping at it as she gazes around the ER, smiling with satisfaction at a rough job well done.

 

It really is the best coffee in town.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: implied canon-typical violence, blood, medical procedures, involuntary sedation
> 
> Thanks as always to my proofreader [Deb](debz0rz.tumblr.com) who will edit at a moment's notice. <3


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